12 May 2010

In the 1920s and 1930s, New York City's Harlem was the focal point of the so-called New Negro Movement, which sparked the Jazz Age and an incredible revolution in art, fashion, literature and music. According to the preeminent African-American historian Henry Louis Gates, the
Harlem Renaissance, as it was later known, was “surely as gay as it was black, not that it was
exclusively either of these.”

Many artists of the Renaissance were subtle, but others such as writer Langston
Hughes (below) and singer Bessie Smith referred to
same-sex attractions in their work. Their art, as well as other artists, are featured in a new exhibit, “The Harlem
Renaissance: As Gay as It Was Black" at Florida Atlantic University.

"The photo panels highlight writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston; singers Ethel Waters, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith; dancer Josephine Baker; comedian Jackie "Moms" Mabley and many others who populated the north Manhattan neighborhood during an era "when the Negro was in vogue," as Hughes once said. But gays – regardless of race – were not so fashionable, even as they surreptitiously captured the zeitgeist and ran with it, earning influential articles in Vanity Fair magazine and The New York Times by Carl Van Vechten, who announced the New Negro Movement to whites with "…now is the psychological moment when everything chic is Negro."

It is only in the last 10 years that scholarship has investigated how much gays, lesbians and bisexuals (many of the participants in same-sex affairs were married, some several times) contributed to the movement. Pop culture hasn't caught on yet, although in 2004 the movie "Brother to Brother" swept the indie festival circuit, winning six major awards, including best fiction feature, at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. The film resurrects Bruce Nugent, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and Wally Thurman."

"Although Harlem at the time was a black gay counterpoint to Greenwich
Village and its population of white gays, intellectuals and
artists, the virulent racial segregation of that era gave gays of color
an additional hurdle to clear. 'Imagine if you had that triple threat:
black, a woman and a lesbian,' said [Jack Rutland, executive director of
the Stonewall Library Museum Archive in Fort Lauderdale]. 'You are
deeply repressed. But there is a place like Harlem and you could be
there with your own kind. So they did and this had an effect on the
point of view of feminists and the art that came from there.'"

We analyzed Brother to Brother's importance for
MTV/LOGO-owned AfterElton. Read that HERE. The images at top and right are from the other important gay film on that era, which surprisingly not mentioned here: Isaac Julien's gorgeous filmLooking for Langston.

Shane Vogel, author of The Scene of Harlem Cabaret: Race, Sexuality,
Performance, says the Renaissance offered freedom: “The goal...was to further depictions of black
life by black artists, which included defining themselves sexually
through art, writing, and dance. Many artists explored those themes in
their work very openly.”

"The Harlem Renaissance: As Gay as It Was Black" was organized by the Stonewall Library Museum Archive in Fort Lauderdale. The exhibit runs May 11-June 30 in Florida Atlantic University's Wimberly Library Atrium in Boca Raton.

13 March 2008

Despite the recent success of Noah's Arc as one of the defining cultural zeitgeists of black gay culture, it may seem difficult to remember the years when black gay men were viewed as marginal and exotic creatures—seen on the streets but never humanized, and, almost never realistically depicted in movies or on television. Film maker Marlon T. Riggs changed the barren landscape with his classic and controversial documentary Tongues Untied. After almost 20 years, Tongues Untied will be released on DVD on March 18.

The documentary by the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning director was a groundbreaking portrayal of black gay issues—discrimination and bigotry within the black community, racism in the "mainstream" gay community, HIV/AIDS, the art of the "snap queen", and, the loneliness and isolation of the drag queen. Riggs began production in Oakland, Washington DC and New York City with a $5,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Tongues Untiedmade its broadcast debut in 1991 on PBS' P.O.V. series, and, along with the furor over artist Robert Mapplethorpe, contributed to the growing debate over the public funding of the arts. The nudity, graphic descriptions of sexuality and revolutionary political ideology infuriated conservatives—NEA Chairman Lynne Cheney promised to review funding procedures and right-wing quasi-racist Sen. Jesse Helms led the charge against the broadcast.

The remastered DVD from Frameline, the LGBT independent film distributor, includes deleted scenes, archival behind-the-scenes footage of Marlon T. Riggs, and, interviews with Rod 2.0 faves such as Isaac Julien and Phill Wilson. Riggs died of AIDS in 1994. Not only would Riggs be proud of the remastered DVD edition of Tongues Untied, but, he would appreciate the fact that the fierce cultural debate is still raging.

DVD GIVEAWAY: Frameline,, is offering limited copies of Tongues Untied exclusively to Rod 2.0 readers. Let's do something for the "children" who came out in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. In the comments below, describe where you first saw Tongues Untied and what impact it made. Was it on television? An art movie house? They are probably some great stories. Comments close Friday at 5PM ET and we'll announce the winners on Monday.

06 September 2007

This has been a banner week for aficionados of black gay history: Looking for Langston was finally released on DVD. The gorgeous film by British director Issac Julien was released in 1989 and has achieved a cult following on both sides of the pond. The running time is less than fifty minutes—technically this qualifies as a "short"—but the dialogue, art direction and subject matter have rendered this a modern classic.

Looking for Langston celebrates renown poet Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance, and, projects this aesthetic to the black, gay experience of the 1980s. The San Francisco Chronicle'sreview is a love letter: "The film uses Hughes' words as well as those of James Baldwin and Essex
Hemphill, among others. As commentary over constantly unfolding images
of a black gay club in the '20s, which evolves into a gay disco in the
'80s."

"The use of archival newsreels and historical reports of how
“Negro art” in the 1920s fell out of vogue with white America are
fascinating," another reviewer notes in the Bay Times. "As is the question about queer Harlem Renaissance poets
trying to impress middle class Black culture, and/or the white
intellectuals/literati, which are as timely today as they were when
they were first posed."

04 September 2007

· Atlanta returns to normal after the Labor Day Black Gay Pride weekend. Writer/activist Darian Aaron recaps—with photos and video—the march from the Martin Luther King Center to the Georgia capitol: "This was by far the most liberating event I attended. Walking in the
scorching Atlanta sun shouting 'I'm Black, I'm Out and I'm Proud'!' was
life affirming and reminiscent of the civil rights movement, a
different struggle, but a struggle I identify with."

· Queerty on Sen. Hillary Clinton's appearance on the season premiere of Ellen: "It’s nice to see Ellen—whose coming out paved the way for countless queers—using her powerful, mainstream platform to explore gay issues. Girl’s about to turn fifty and she’s
still pushing the envelope, and, hopefully, pushing America in the
right.

· Popnography on the interview with with former Sen. Larry Craig's (adopted) children: "The hands-down most bizarre and intense" element of the coverage so far, where they debate "definitions of what sex is.
Though the kids say they believe dad's denial, they also amazingly say
it'd be okay if he was, in fact, gay. Which he's allegedly not."

· Eighteen years after its introduction, Isaac Julien's classic film, Looking for Langston, is finally on DVD.

· British model sues tabloid for reporting she had sex with the very! straight! 50 Cent because this "damaged her
professional and personal reputations [as] well as caused her distress
and embarrassment."

· Tomorrow the House begins hearings on the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act which has a strong shot at passage session—although the President has vowed a veto. Last week, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed an executive order "prohibiting discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity."

05 February 2007

Isaac Julien—the ridiculously talented black gay British director who created such avant garde classics as Looking for Langston and Young Soul Rebels—continues his lecture series at the Guggenheim. Tonight at 7:30pm, the film maker and visual artist will discuss his trilogy of film installations: True North, Fantôme Créole and Small Boats. Above is a panel from True North, which was filmed in Sweden and Iceland in 2004. See our review HERE.

· Fashion guru Lloyd Boston on conspicuous fashion statements. "It's really uninventinve...It saddens me especially when I see people of color caught up in logos and designer status logos because we never needed that to make an international style statement. We would set trends with hand-me-downs in decades past because we were creative enough and inventive enough to express ourselves."

· Gay and lesbian Democratic activists meet with chairman Howard Dean and push for more gay and lesbian delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

· As the Iowa state legislature debates new protections for gay and lesbian students to prohibit harassment and bullying, two 19-year-old Des Moines women are arrested for a vicious hate crime against a 16-year-old gay teen.

· Montana: Legislators revive a bill to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians.

20 April 2006

A rich collection of photographs from the newly-released portfolio, "Looking for Langston" by Isaac Julien and Sunil Gupta. The black and white images were captured by Gupta during the production of Julien's acclaimed 1989 film, Looking for Langston.

Gupta docments the key elements and nuances of Julien's film, including the staging, lighting, iconography and choreography. The collection is now being exhibited for the first time at New York's Metro Pictures Gallery, 519 W. 24th St.

23 February 2006

This week a new campaign was launched in Britain to raise awareness of its black lesbian and gay leaders, part of the 100 Black Britons event as the country prepares to celebrate its Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender Month. "Their contribution is too often ignored. This list is a key way of letting communities, black and white, straight and gay, celebrate that contribution," says Rob Berkeley of the Black Gay Men's Advisory Group.

Just a few of the leaders honored are above. At left, Justin Fashanu was the first professional footballer to declare his homosexuality, but his career was derailed by homophobia in both the Black community and in English football. Inge Blackman is a writer, director and film programmer. She has directed several documentaries for British television including BD Women, a stylized documentary about black lesbian culture. At right, Isaac Julien needs little introduction; he's a brilliant director, screenwriter, artist and critic.

28 August 2005

True North is the latest project by Isaac Julien, the acclaimed black, queer British renaissance man of the arts. Julien is one of Britain's most provocative filmmakers, having helmed the avant garde classic Looking for Langston, and Young Soul Rebels, a biting look at race, class and sexuality during the Thatcher years.

Julien wears his photographer hat for this latest work, which is a photo exhibition and video installation. The images were shot in Northern Sweden and Iceland in 2004, where Julien juxtaposes images of himself and other blacks in the tundra, snow and seemingly endless expanse of ice. The highly stylized formality and lush backdrops make this appear more surrealistic than mere landscape photography. There's tremendous back-story here, the photo shoot somewhat based on the real-life story of Matthew Henson, the black man who assisted Robert Peary on his historic trip to the North Pole. In an interview at Deutsche Bank Art News, the director says he finds beauty in the sublime:

I’m trying to link that history with an actual landscape and the unwritten historical legacy of the first person to actually reach the North Pole, who was indeed not Peary, but Matthew Henson. There’s beauty to ice and a deathly attraction we have towards that space. The narrative is elliptical and poetic.

Organically, True North is much more about race than sexuality, and even though we dislike comparing the latter to the former, there is an obvious message: It's up to us to make sure that we are stand up and are counted. History will stop being recorded as a primarily white (or straight) creation when minorities assert themselves and demand that their achievements are noted.